VentureBeat

GigaOm has a noteworthy piece about Reid Hoffman, chief executive of LinkedIn, and how he almost decided to sit out of investing in the crowded media space, but the decided to invest anyway — but only after adjusting his strategy.

Hoffman was in from the beginning of the fad, and has been known to speedily round up $250,000 seed rounds from among his friends for projects he likes. Obviously, with LinkedIn, he might be using his Web 2.0 contact tools to do this

The investor in Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Ironport Systems, Last.fm, Nanosolar, Ning, Six Apart, Socialtext, Tagged, Technorati, Tiny Pictures, Wikia, and more, said his requirements are as follows:

First, customer acquisition: data, or a really good plan, on how to get to the first million users, then a good growth rate thereafter. Second: good pricing power and margins, for economics. Third: an ability to protect the business once you’ve created it through innovation.

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